Rare books from Singularity Rare & Fine

London: Constable & Co., Ltd., 1928. First Edition . Levant Morocco with Gilt. Very Good Plus. Octavo. London: Constable & Co., Ltd., 1928. First Edition, very handsomely bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe of London, with their small imprint on the verso of the ffep. ix, [1], 345 pp. 8vo. A gorgeous near fine volume, with serious curb appeal. Bound in full period levant blue-green morocco, ruled and tooled in gilt, two gilt-lettered orange morocco spine labels, spined tooled in gilt, raised bands, inner gilt dentelles, patterned endpapers, all edges gilt. Spine is either very uniformly sunned, or is of olive morocco; a striking look, in either case. See scans. Internally fine. Serious shelf appeal. A scholarly examination of the two critical nineteenth century poets. Small wood-engraved bookseller's paper label from Paul Elder & Co. on the rear flyleaf, for the collector of those. A display book. L-45n

New York: The MacMillan Company, 1903. First Edition . Cloth. Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. [photographs]. Near Fine. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1903. First Edition [BAL 11877], Sisson & Martens p. 15. Signed and inscribed by Becky London to her friend Mark Zamen. Photographically illustrated. Hefty octavo, xiii,[1],319,[1]+[3]ad pp. Gray/Blue cloth stamped in black and gilt, Top Edge Gilt. Rubbing and light soiling at spine and cover, leaving some wear to gilt, else basically flawless. Near Fine. The true first edition, in a rather exceptional state of preservation, of People of the Abyss, perhaps the scarcest of London's ventures into social investigative journalism. In 1902, posing as an out-of-work sailor, he "went underground into the belly of the beast" - the slums of London's East End - where, living on the street and working odd jobs, he was accepted by the locals and was able to collect the experiences retold here. Widely lauded… Read More

1900. Japanese Lacquer. Very Good. Oblong Quarto. Large Japanese Lacquer postcard album with bone and mother-of-pearl onlays. Undated, circa 1900. With 22 total postcards, 18 of which are hand-colored collotype postcards, 2 are actual black and white photographs, most measuring 3½"x5½" and are laid into 6 thick leaves with silk covers, each hand-painted with flower prints in watercolor. (Oblong 4to) 9¾x13¼, Japanese lacquer album in black, front cover with carved bone & mother of pearl inlays, showing a Japanese man rowing a boat and transporting two Japanese women, black leather spine. Collection of hand-colored postcards of the Nagasaki area. All inside surfaces and end papers are of silk and hand painted with soft colors and a delicate hand, showing country-side huts, rivers, lakes, birds, and sprays of flowers. Each page is prepared to accept 4 post cards, with orange threads intact. The hand-colored postcards are over a collotype photograph, some… Read More

Garden City, New York: Doubleday Page, 1925. Biographical Edition . Cloth. Near Fine/Very Good. 16mo - over 5¾" - 6¾" tall. Near Fine books in Very Good jackets. Garden City, New York: Doubleday Page, 1925. Biographical Edition. Four volumes in jackets, 317 pp. [Rolling Stones], 153 pp.[Heart of the West, v2], 221 pp.[The Voice of the City], 164 pp. [Whirligigs]. Near fine to fine 16mo volumes, bright, tight, and handsome in purple cloth with bright gilt imprinting on the spines. Trace edgewear on a couple of them. Scarce dustjackets are well worn at corners and edges, and show spine discoloration, but are complete, including the $.90 price notation. About-VG jackets. Bookplate of Kathryn Davis on front pastedown of all four. A nice early collectible format of O. Henry titles, the Doubleday Page 1925 Biographical Edition was handsomely bound, the jackets bore praise from contemporary literary luminaries, and each ffep carried a Henry quotation. One sample: "I am… Read More

Hastings-on-Hudson, NY: Morgan & Morgan, 1966. First Edition . Cloth. Near Fine/Very Good Plus. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. [photographs]. Hastings-on-Hudson, New York: Morgan & Morgan, various dates. All five titles in Ansel Adams' Basic Photo Series, four of them signed by Adams. Basic Photo One: Camera and Lens. First Revised Edition, 1970. Signed on the title page. Small quarto. Near fine in better than very good jacket. Basic Photo Two: The Negative. New Revised Edition, 1966. Signed on the title page. Octavo. Previous owner's writing on endpapers, else near fine book in very good jacket. Basic Photo Three: The Print. New Edition, 1968. Signed on the title page. Octavo. Near fine book in better than very good jacket. Basic Photo Four: Natural-Light Photography. Sixth printing of the first edition, 1969. [not signed]. Octavo. Near fine book in better than very good jacket. Basic Photo Five: Artificial-Light Photography. Fourth printing… Read More

New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1906. First Edition, Second Issue . Cloth. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Bull, Charles Livingston. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1906. First edition, second issue. Signed on ffep by London's daughter, Becky. Octavo, 327 pp + ads. Blue/green cloth, pictorial cover. Only light soiling and shelf wear. Hinges just starting to crack with rear hinge showing signs of glue repair. Bright, sturdy, Very Good, with better than VG curb appeal. See scans. Second issue according to BAL and Woodbridge, with the tipped-in title page; Merle Johnson, however, states that the title page was always on a stub, or at least all the copies he examined. At any rate, copies with an integral title-page seem to be virtually unobtainable. BAL 11896; Sisson & Martens, p. London's classic adventure tale of the dog-wolf, White Fang, in a first edition example signed by London's daughter, Becky, and previously owned by C.S.… Read More

San Bernardino, CA: San Bernardino Public Library System, 1950. Soft cover. About near Fine. 6.5" x 2. San Bernardino Free Public Library (California) Book Mark, circa 1950. 6.5" x 2" light green oak tag paper, black imprinting. Diagonal slits at top for hanging. Age toning toward the top and bottom, and the name "Diana" is inked in script on the reverse; penciled in on the reverse is the number 73566. Maybe that was Diana's phone number. Otherwise, about Near Fine. Shown on the obverse, after the classic and traditional tips for treating books well - remember how the librarian would hit you on the knuckles with a ruler if you dog-eared a page ? - is the address of the Main Branch - 587 E Street - and its telephone number, which was TUxedo 44-1183. Apparently, eight digits were necessary instead of seven at that time, though the same is not true of the branch libraries listed further down, which had the standard seven, all of them also with the Alphabetic… Read More

New York: Street & Smith Publications, 1941. 1st Edition . Soft cover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. New York: Street & Smith Publications, 1941. First Editions, one each of both the American and (shorter) British editions. Both Octavo, both illustrated wraps. American Edition, 162 numbered pages, better than Very Good, not quite Near Fine. British Edition, 64 pages. Very Good. See scans for a clearer idea. A seminal and oddly scarce issue of the memorable Astounding Science Fiction fiction periodical, which carried the first appearance of many stories. Notable among those in this issue was the first appearance of Isaac Asimov's "Reason" a very early robot's-emerging-awareness tale which has earned its own wiki article, L. Sprague De Camp's "The Stolen Dormouse", which was the feature story here (see scans of cover), A.E. Van Vogt's "Not the First" and Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God"… Read More

New York, NY: Ace Books, Inc., 1965. 1st Edition . Soft cover. Very Good. 16mo - over 5¾ - 6¾" tall. Gaughan, Jack. New York: Ace Books, Inc., 1965. Signed by Farmer on the title page. The true First Edition of this title. Illustrated wraps, 16mo, 189 numbered pages. Cover and interior art by Jack Gaughan. Small chip on rear cover at lower left, flyleaf loose, other a very sharp, bright copy, better than very good. Signed, true first edition of the first title in Farmer's World of Tiers series. Excellent provenance on the signature. See scans. L38n

Francisco, Almira, 2012. Soft cover. Fine. Francisco, Almira. 2012: Original art by Almira Francisco, diluted poster color over graphite on watercolor paper, 10" x 15", signed and dated at lower left. "Princess Leia", an homage to the iconic SW character played by Carrie Fisher - and this execution does, indeed, look like Carrie Fisher. Almira Francisco is one of the sharpest of the otherwise-male-dominated up-and-charging Filipino pin-up artist group. Fine, New. See scans. Not matted, unframed...but imagine this one on a wall all to itself. L308

2010. Soft cover. As New. De Felipe, Jun. 2010 original art by the widely appreciated pin-up and comic book artist Jun De Felipe, this being his vision of "Red Sonja" (see below). Fine, As New. Mixed media pastel painting on US master illustration board. 15" x 10", image occupies entire board. Signed and dated, lower right. See scans. Red Sonja is a fictional sword-and-sorcery warrior maiden originally approximately based on a character in Robert E. Howard's "The Shadow of the Vulture", a 1934 short story, but popularized in "Conan the Barbarian #23" of Marvel Comics. L308

Cleveland: Railley Corporation, 1944. 1st Edition . Soft cover. Near Fine. 24mo - over 5 - 5¾" tall. Cleveland: Railley Corporation, 1944. The Spring, 1944 "Railley Pin-It-Ups" edition; in fact, Railley wrappers around a Zoe Mozert booklet of her mutoscope pin-up art, each example of which bears her imprinted signature as well as the monogram of Brown & Bigelow, the mutoscope card folks. Not actually cars, but the same art with dotted lines (not perforated) along which to cut the pin-ups out. See sample scans. 24mo, illustrated wraps (double wraps, Railley's around Mozert's, as noted above), 24 interior "pages" (each page being a Mozert pin-up on the recto, and a mildly bawdy cartoon on the verso, those cartoons being uncredited). 11 leaves are pin-ups + cartoon, the twelve is a delightful cottage-in-the-woods-with-flowers piece - that last one not being imprinted with Mozert's signature, but it does bear the same Brown * Bigelow monogram, it is within… Read More

No Location: Burcham, F. Newton ("Butch"), 2007. First Edition . Soft cover. Fine. 22" x 14. Burcham, F. Newton ("Butch"). Original mixed-media art on heavy art paper by Butch Burcham. Full color. Subject is Dejah Thoris, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Princess of Mars, who appeared most saliently in five Burroughs novels as the love interest of John Carter. Here, Dejah is rather fruitlessly threatening some bad guy aircraft with her knife, though looking very fetching, and not wearing a layered look at all, in the process. See scan. A classic, appealing Burcham Good Girl in this incarnation. 20" x 14" , unframed, fine. Signed and dated in 2007 at lower left corner. F. Newton "Butch" Burcham has lengthy credits in comic book and computer game illustration. He is listed at ERBzine as a Burroughs illustrator for his contributions to the body of published Tarzan illustration, and was interior artist for Pinnacle's vidgame titles "Monsters, Muties… Read More

Boston: Ballou, M.M., 1856. First Edition . Soft cover. Very Good. Elephant Folio - over 15" - 23" tall. From Engravings. Boston: M.M. Ballou, 1856. First Edition. The February 2, 1856 issue, Volume X, No. 5, Whole No. 239. Numerous illustrations from engravings. Elephant folio size, sewn newsprint wraps, 16 pp. Very Good Plus, with small areas of peripheral darkening, soil on rear cover, small dog ear without loss at some leaves; standard age-toning to the paper. A sturdy example. See scans. Maturin Ballou's paper was quite supple, not at all fragile, and it shows. Sharp, healthy, well-preserved. This issue contains stories, articles, and / or the diverse and now somewhat legendary engravings - here, regarding: cover article, Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, with text and one large portrait engraving; The Contrabandists, or The Secret of A Life / A True Story of the South of France (continuation, with of several chapters; one engraving as illustration; author uncredited here); two… Read More

Franklin Center, PA: The Franklin Library, 1980. Hardcover. As New. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. Rane, Walter. As New; pristine. See description and scans. Franklin Center, PA: The Franklin Library, 1980. Signed, limited edition. Signed by Percy in black ink on the third free endpaper, with tissue guard. Includes the rather scarce accompanying twenty-two page "Notes From the Editors" commentary, laid in. Illustrations by Walter Rane. Octavo, 224 pp. As New; immaculate and pristine. See scans. Franklin's lavish leather binding of the Signed, Limited Edition of Percy's 1961 Southern Lit / existentialist novel, which wont the U.S. National Book Award and earned a spot in the Top 100 modern English Language Novels lists of both Time and Modern Library. Artist Walter Rane's illustrations are original for this edition. Rich green topgrain cowhide binding, gilt decorated and imprinted, spine panels rib divided, All Edges Gilt, green moire endpapers, and a matching… Read More